Drug Enforcement Administration

Mr. and Mrs. David M. Syrett of Newport News, Va., are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Megan Elizabeth Syrett, to Ryan Eric Burwell Schulze, son of Mr. and Mrs. Eric Schulze of Woodbridge, Va. Megan is a 2000 graduate of Menchville High School and a 2004 graduate of the College of William & Mary, where she received a B.A. in English. Megan currently is employed as a paralegal for the Office of Chief Counsel, Drug Enforcement Administration. Ryan is a 1999 graduate of Woodbridge Senior High School and graduated from James Madison University in 2004 with a B.A. in business management.

Mr. and Mrs. David M. Syrett of Newport News, Va., are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Megan Elizabeth Syrett, to Ryan Eric Burwell Schulze, son of Mr. and Mrs. Eric Schulze of Woodbridge, Va. Megan is a 2000 graduate of Menchville High School and a 2004 graduate of the College of William & Mary, where she received a B.A. in English. Megan currently is employed as a paralegal for the Office of Chief Counsel, Drug Enforcement Administration. Ryan is a 1999 graduate of Woodbridge Senior High School and graduated from James Madison University in 2004 with a B.A. in business management.

As a teen-ager, Eric Moorehead learned the drug trade from his father. He became so good at it that his father eventually went to work for him. By 1994, Moorehead -- a Norfolk high school dropout -- was managing a multi-million-dollar drug ring in Hampton Roads. "There's no question," said an agent with a federal drug task force that investigated Moorehead. "He was, if not the biggest trafficker in Tidewater, one of the biggest." Last week, a federal judge sentenced Moorehead to 30 years in prison for operating a criminal enterprise between 1994 and June 2001.

From 1995 to 2001, Donovan Bradley spent all but nine months in state prisons for dealing cocaine in Hampton and violating his probation. Prison didn't turn his life around. "Within a month from being released from the penitentiary, he was back in business," said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Murphy. The Newport News man set up shop in Phoebus and began selling cocaine and guns on the street, Murphy said. It took an investigation that involved the Hampton Police Department, the inspector general of the Department of Veteran's Affairs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to gather enough information to prosecute Bradley.

Nine people were arrested in Mathews County on drug charges Thursday following a two-month undercover investigation that involved the sheriff's office, state police and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The arrests took place along with the execution of two search warrants and resulted in the arrest of eight Mathews residents and one Gloucester resident on a combined 31 felony charges including distribution of crack, firearms and marijuana possession. Sheriff Danny Howlett said the operation was successful because of information offered by local citizens along with the work of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The 59-year-old man whose partner committed suicide when police discovered their drug lab in Chesapeake last Thanksgiving was sentenced to 16 years in prison Thursday. FRANCIS IAN TONNER, a native of Liverpool, England, also known as MALCOLM RONAY, pleaded guilty in February in U.S. District Court to attempting to produce methamphetamine, which is more commonly known as speed. He was sentenced by Judge John A. MacKenzie. Tonner had previously been convicted in Europe, Canada and Massachusetts on similar charges.

Just hours after a federal judge declared him a fugitive on Friday, Clinton F. Taylor turned himself in to U.S. marshals in Hampton, a Hampton Police spokesman said Saturday. Taylor, 43, was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of drug conspiracy and distribution. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration had been looking for him since Aug. 6. At noon Friday, U.S. Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. declared Taylor a fugitive and ordered his remaining assets forfeited to the government.

From 1995 to 2001, Donovan Bradley spent all but nine months in state prisons for dealing cocaine in Hampton and violating his probation. Prison didn't turn his life around. "Within a month from being released from the penitentiary, he was back in business," said Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Murphy. The Newport News man set up shop in Phoebus and began selling cocaine and guns on the street, Murphy said. It took an investigation that involved the Hampton Police Department, the inspector general of the Department of Veteran's Affairs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to gather enough information to prosecute Bradley.

A Hampton man caught at a Los Angeles airport with $23,000 worth of cocaine agreed to take two federal drug agents with him to Norfolk to deliver the drugs to two accomplices, a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent said Monday. Antonio M. Palmer of the Bright's Creek apartments on Royston Drive was stopped at a Los Angeles airport during the weekend by suspicious U.S. Customs agents, who found 8.8 pounds of the drug and then turned him over to the DEA, said John King, agent in charge of the Norfolk DEA office.

We know that Oliver North provided weapons to America's sworn enemy, the Ayatollah Khomeini. We know that he skimmed some of the profits for himself. We know that he supplied the Nicaraguan Contras after Congress ordered an end to America's support. We know that he lied to Congress. But even with his arrogance for Congress and the law, could North, now running for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia, have hired Central American drug smugglers and have given them access to American soil as part of his illegal plot to supply the Contras?

Nine people were arrested in Mathews County on drug charges Thursday following a two-month undercover investigation that involved the sheriff's office, state police and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The arrests took place along with the execution of two search warrants and resulted in the arrest of eight Mathews residents and one Gloucester resident on a combined 31 felony charges including distribution of crack, firearms and marijuana possession. Sheriff Danny Howlett said the operation was successful because of information offered by local citizens along with the work of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The Bush administration plans to double licensing fees on doctors, pharmacies and drug makers to expand the government's fight against prescription drug abuse, which is growing rapidly across the United States. Officials said the fee increase will be disclosed in the next few days by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which polices the distribution of prescription drugs. The illegal use of these drugs is growing by at least 27 percent each year, and represents as big an abuse problem as cocaine, according to recent reports and federal surveys.

As a teen-ager, Eric Moorehead learned the drug trade from his father. He became so good at it that his father eventually went to work for him. By 1994, Moorehead -- a Norfolk high school dropout -- was managing a multi-million-dollar drug ring in Hampton Roads. "There's no question," said an agent with a federal drug task force that investigated Moorehead. "He was, if not the biggest trafficker in Tidewater, one of the biggest." Last week, a federal judge sentenced Moorehead to 30 years in prison for operating a criminal enterprise between 1994 and June 2001.

A man who was shot last year by a federal drug agent outside a Hampton bar was arrested over the weekend on a cocaine charge. Jason W. Temple, 22, of the first block of Albany Drive was charged with possession of cocaine Saturday night after, police said, he was spotted putting a small quantity of crack in his pocket. A bicycle officer approached Temple after he was seen urinating behind the Juvenile and Domestic Relations building at 30 King's Way Mall, police said. He was free on bail Wednesday.

Armento's fate Judgment used in ex-DEA agent sentence At first glance, it might look as though former federal drug agent Joseph Armento got off easy. Hampton Circuit Judge Christopher Hutton sentenced the former Drug Enforcement Administration agent to five years in state prison, suspending all of it for 10 years, contingent on good behavior. He'll also have to serve some period of supervised probation. The bottom line: Armento won't do time behind bars. That might seem like a light sentence, given what brought him before Hutton in the first place: Armento and five other off-duty DEA agents spend a night drinking in a bar, then go outside and get into a drunken fight that leaves two patrons wounded by gunfire.

Former federal drug agent Joseph Armento will not go to prison for his role in a drunken January showdown outside a Hampton bar that left two fellow patrons wounded. Following Armento's emotional turn on the witness stand Monday morning, Circuit Judge Christopher W. Hutton sentenced him to five years in state prison and just as quickly suspended all of it for 10 years, contingent on good behavior. Armento also will serve a to-be-determined period of supervised probation. "I do not feel in this case that incarceration would serve any purpose other than retribution," said Hutton, noting the "punishment that Mr. Armento has already visited upon himself."

A Newport News man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Tuesday to possessing almost one kilogram of cocaine with the intent to distribute it. Henry Villanueva, 52, of the 500 block of Burcher Road, previously convicted of helping Oscar R. Smith traffic drugs on the Peninsula, faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced July 11. Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. allowed Villanueva to remain free on...

The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating whether a highly decorated official arrested this week on drug trafficking charges tipped off a major East Coast cocaine ring about agency operations while he served in a sensitive post in DEA's Office of International Programs, agency sources said Wednesday. The arrest of Edward K. O'Brien at Boston's Logan airport Monday has, for the first time, raised the prospect that DEA headquarters may have been penetrated by drug traffickers.

Several times in this space I have written that the Hampton Police Department let federal drug agents who had been drinking drive government vehicles away from the scene of a shooting involving one of their own. That information, based on statements from a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman, is not true, Hampton Police Chief Pat Minetti, Lt. Chuck Jordan and detective Sgt. Edgar Browning insisted last week. These police officials, angry about my coverage of the DEA shooting case, spoke about their investigation of the Jan. 14 incident.

Joseph Armento, the DEA agent charged with shooting a fellow bar patron last week, remains free on bond pending a preliminary hearing in two months, authorities said. Armento, accompanied by his attorney and a blonde woman, appeared in General District Court Wednesday for a hearing. A judge ordered the suspended federal agent to return March 24. Armento ignored reporters and photographers as he walked hand-in-hand with the woman from the court building to a sport utility vehicle.